Important Announcement

I said that the black japan finish that has been used for centuries and the system for doing this lost “black art” that Ron Reinhold managed to develop had been and would continue to be the only way we’d do black hooks. Well, I have been wrestling with a real conundrum since then. I knew fully that the system we now use to apply colour to our hooks can also do black. In fact, we can do an exhibition finish on a hook in less time than the long and often extremely frustrating japan exhibition finish. Plus, it looks better, is as hard as japan and we don’t make rejects!
I doubt I could even describe the japanning process in words alone so all I will say is that it takes hours for the traditional and the Exhibition finish. The traditional is a bit easier and the exhibition finish is very difficult and technique sensitive and no guarantee every, or any for that matter, hook comes out well. Temperature, humidity and unknown forces can wreak havoc with particularly the exhibition finish.
The bottom line is that by taking out most of the variables and cutting fairly significant amounts of time I can make every hook I produce, an exhibition grade hook. I can put a little more time shaping the points, gutters and barbs and polishing the wires of the traditional hooks and use the new system to apply the exhibition grade finish.
So, call me a liar or flip flopper but I have decided to replace the japan finish of both grades and offer every hook as an exhibition grade with a glassy smooth finish that could barely be imagined one or two hundred years ago.
The prices will be a little higher than the traditional hooks were and a little lower than the exhibition. This will allow tyers who may not have been able to afford the higher priced exhibition grade hooks to be able to tie all of their flies on the same beautiful hooks that many of the big names do. It will also let those of you already using the exhibition hooks to save a little money and actually get a better hook.
I will still sell the japanned hooks that I have in stock so if you want them, let me know what hook shapes and sizes you want. When they’re gone though, they’re gone. Should anyone still want japanned hooks, I can do them but at a higher price than is the case now.

Price Information

If you have one of Ron Reinhold’s catalogs, you will have noticed that Ron hadn’t raised his prices for about 7 years! When I went to Ron’s place to learn his hook making methods, I was struck by some of the supplies that were liberally used not to mention the electricity and lastly the time it takes to produce these hooks. We talked at some length about prices and Ron knew he had fallen behind on prices and would have raised them if he hadn’t sold me the business. The increase we thought was fair although nothing that would make a hook maker rich would be about 20% overall. I realize that the prices might seem high to those of us who have tied on machine made hooks (even the so called hand made hooks are machine made for all practical purposes) but these are made one by one, 100% by hand.

As a side note, I wrestled with trying to determine one or two prices for the hooks to simplify everything but anything I did, didn’t seem fair at the ends of the size spectrum either for me or the customer. One of the astounding things is the number of hook sizes and styles that Ron Reinhold developed that simply are not available anywhere else. Really great for us tyers but it comes with the pricing challenges. I’m a tyer first and foremost so I have many of the same thought processes as the customers have. I want value for my dollars as much as anyone else. I believe these prices meet this challenge.

To view or print the prices, click on the price list below. When ordering, please be clear in what you want. Several styles hooks have the same size gape but different lengths.

These prices are effective as of July 4, 2006.

Happy Trails!
Ronn